Nokia today starts shipping the Nokia E72 messaging smartphone to retail stores and online stores in time for the holiday travelers. The Nokia E72 looks like a refined E71 with a better keyboard, 600MHz processor and a 5 megapixel camera (not a Carl Zeiss lens though). We had some hands on time with it and it is a very fast smartphone. The keyboard is likewise improved from the E72, feeling a tad less cramped and having the high end look of the Nokia E75. The Nokia E72 is priced at $469.

Add some extra holiday cheer to your social interactions with the Nokia E72's desktop-like chat experiences and email, whether with your friends or your boss. And when you're done communicating, snap sharp pictures of loved ones with the Nokia E72's five-megapixel camera, then upload your pictures directly to the web or send them to far-flung family. With an optical navi key and built-in Ovi Maps with A-GPS navigation and a compass, even finding your way to grandmother's house is easier than ever.

The holidays mean your calendar will likely be packed, but the Nokia E72 can help you balance a hectic schedule. With its multiple email accounts and separate home screen profiles for work and personal time, you can be flexible when it comes to choosing how, when, where and who to respond to - even if you feel like you're in a rush to reply. With so many people planning doing work-related email over the holidays, the Nokia E72 handles work email with ease, using either Mail for Exchange or IBM Lotus Notes Traveler.

Keep on track of all those messages over the holidays and beyond. With Nokia Messaging, the Nokia E72 allows you to mobilize up to 10 personal email accounts, and now you can also set up instant messaging (IM) directly from the homescreen, accessing communities such as Windows Live(TM) Messenger, Yahoo! Messenger, Google Talk and Ovi Chat. Just like chatting via the desktop, people can respond to friends and colleagues across multiple communities in real-time.

The Nokia E72 will cost $469 and is available through www.nokiausa.com, Best Buy and other independent retail channels in the United States. Be sure to check out the hottest holiday apps on Ovi Store on your Nokia E72, and thousands more on http://store.ovi.com